CROCLIST: Search for Trenton

[Chris Law]

Greetings Adam!

    Thanks for the clarification on this.  I certainly hope that they will not try to clear out every animal over 8ft in length, but I suppose IF they had probable reason to suspect that the body was possibly taken to this area to "get rid of the evidence", then it might be worth while.  It is still a shame, but after your clarification, I feel quite a bit better about the situation.

Best Wishes,

Chris
www.herpfanatic.com


Adam Britton <abritton at crocodilian.com> wrote: I doubt it Chris, because it wouldn't really be accurate.  Regardless of the
merits of the investigation, there is a reasonably good chance that bone and
keratin (hair, nails) remains would still be present in the stomach after
three weeks (never mind a week).  I supervised a student research project
several years ago looking at digestion rates of long bones in the crocodile
stomach, and although they lose their density reasonably quickly the bones
remain in the stomach for many weeks while they slowly digest (after a
month, discs of bone were still present, though jelly-like) - this is at
warm, wet season / summer temperatures.  Hair and nails can take much longer
to digest (months) although I don't know how long it takes for identifying
characteristics to disappear (so you can ID them as human or animal).

There was a case in the NT about two months ago where a child was taken by a
saltie, and clearly identifiable (though otherwise unspecified) remains were
found in the stomach nearly three weeks after the incident.

Slaughtering the entire alligator population seems a little extreme (and
difficult) if indeed that rumour is accurate, although there is some
precedence for killing suspected animals in these situations.  Sometimes the
actual animal can be identified, particularly if it frequents a specific
area, and if it attacks one person and succeeds then it represents a
heightened attack risk in the future.  If nothing else, it also helps to
appease segments of the community so they see that action is being taken,
and killing a small sample of animals is unlikely to harm the local
alligator population.  But in this case it may be a case of solving the
mystery of what happened to the boy - whether foul play was involved or not,
and clearly killing a few alligators isn't going to put off the local
lawmakers to find that out.

Best wishes,

Adam


-----Original Message-----
From: croclist-bounces at lists.gatorhole.com
[mailto:croclist-bounces at lists.gatorhole.com] On Behalf Of Christopher Law
Sent: Tuesday, 19 September 2006 9:45 AM
To: croclist at lists.gatorhole.com
Subject: Re: CROCLIST: Search for Trenton

I agree, within a week there really wouldn't be a trace of the child left
inside of the alligators stomach.  Someone should step up and make mention
of this, otherwise, there are going to be a lot of alligators dying for no
good reason at all.  Isn't there a professional in the field who would be
willing to step up and recommend against this action?

Chris
www.herpfanatic.com


On Sep 18, 2006, at 5:20 PM, Bill Zeigler wrote:


 I have just been informed by a friend that channel 9 out of Orlando
Florida has announced the plans by the Orange County Sheriffs Department to
kill every gator over 8 feet in a lake in the Ocala National Forest in an
attempt to find any remains of the young boy.  I hope this is not true.
  
 First of all, the boy has been missing for at least three weeks
looking at the timing of the supposed sighting of Trenton and his mother at
this particular lake and the date she announced he was missing to today.
Given the water temps and the basking temps these gators experience, there
is very little to no chance that any remains of a small child would be found
in a gator.
  
 To randomly kill gators for such an endeavor is ludicrous.  
  
 I have deep sympathy for the family, but taking the lives of a
unknown number of gators for a ill fated search makes no sense.  This whole
thing has gotten out of hand and is running on emotion and not logic.
 bz
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Chris Law
U.A.P.P.E.A.L. (Uniting a Proactive Primate and Exotic Animal League)
Herpetoculture Element Representative
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